Harlem Nights

Harlem Nights (1989) is a crime comedy you can watch online on iFILM — Eddie Murphy's directorial debut, with Murphy also writing the screenplay and sharing the screen with Richard Pryor. Set in 1930s Harlem, the film drops into the world of underground clubs and illegal gambling dens where staying in business means outsmarting everyone around you.

Sugar Ray runs a thriving backroom casino alongside his adopted son Quick Brown. When mob boss Bugsy Calhoune and a string of bent cops decide to muscle in, the two of them don't fold — they engineer a con that lets their enemies destroy each other. The cast fills out with Redd Foxx, Danny Aiello and Arsenio Hall, each one adding exactly the right kind of weight to this period setting.

Murphy's direction has rough patches, but his instincts as a performer carry the film. What works best is the texture of the era — the suits, the slang, the jazz-soaked atmosphere of a community that built something real under constant pressure from outside. Stream Harlem Nights (1989) online on iFILM.